#wlw
the moon is a whisper
on my bedroom wall,
she's ten times louder in my head
her name is a tide
it pulls,
it tugs,
it etches itself
on the inside of my eyelids.
every blink is a memory i didn't ask for
her laugh-
uninvited
but welcome
always
the bed is too big
for one body and this much longing
some nights
sleep forgets me
other nights
she replaces it
Jun 19, 2025
Jun 19, 2025 at 10:31 AM UTC
Outside of a bar in a North Carolina strip mall, stone cold sober because I am scared to use my fake, I feel drunk as you sit next to me. Perhaps I am. I'd have to be to think maybe, maybe, maybe, when I know, I know, I know.
Your hand brushes against mine, and you're saying the most beautiful words I've ever heard, and the fire in my heart spreads up, down, left, right. But it cannot spread just four inches outside of my body. It cannot set you on fire, too.
We listen to each other and hear two very different things. You are birdsong outside of my window that I am eager to hear; I am traffic outside of your window you've learned to tune out at bedtime.
If there are nine million bicycles in Beijing, then Beijing is my insides and bicycles are your name, because it is written on my insides nine million times. But there are no bicycles on Antarctica. There is no use for them there, just as there's no use for my name to be perched on a straight girl's ribs.
You tell me my weird hobby of listening to French rap music is awesome, that it's so cool that I'm teaching myself three languages, and that you want to be me when you grow up - I laugh, because you're several years older than me. Selfishly I catch every droplet of your praise. I ruminate on it for hours, for days. It means more to me than it should.
My name sounds like a compliment from your mouth. I try not to say yours too often, so you don't grow tired of me being around. If I can't set your insides on fire, I want you to want to be my friend. Even that feels like I ask for too much.
In every scene, I see you in the foreground of the narrative. For me, it would be on honor to be one of your background characters. Narratives are richer with them anyway.
I look at you and you are the Harry Potter movie marathon I wait months for. For you, I am the 2 am infomercial you fell asleep to. But I don't mind half as much as I should. Even white noise has its place in someone's life.
Sep 6, 2018
Sep 6, 2018 at 10:17 PM UTC
The sunlight winks from behind the umbrella of leaves and mangoes overhead. It tickles your cheekbones like the first, second, thirtieth good morning kiss. Your sandals are worn. A woven basket rests heavy on your hip, in your hands.
Your fingers, slender and worn by the earth, trace the contours of my face the way they search for meaning in a dictionary. Gravity. We inch closer. Have you always had a widow’s peak? Your hand finds it rightful place over my heart. I kiss you for the thirty-first time today. You taste of plantains and milk. You smell of sweat and the sun. My hand relishes in the traces of heat on your cheek.
One mango drops from your possession. Unripe, but soon to be opened up and worshipped as it is meant to be. Your fingers grasp the yellowing heart and press it against my lips. I rest against the trunk and sink my teeth into it. Liquid sunrise trickles down your wrist onto my blouse. The leaves create shadow puppets on the ground, the story of two young fools swaying in the shade of a tree.
Aug 12, 2021
Aug 12, 2021 at 6:32 AM UTC
Her figure in my bed
relaxes, half obscured by silk sheets;
there’s a sweetness to her uncovered form,
not in a way that is ****** or arousing,
but for how it speaks of comfort in my presence
like we are so adapted to each other
that nothing is strange or foreign to us—
even the vulnerability of nakedness.
And like a goddess, she pulls me in to her chest,
a whisper of soft and beautiful flesh;
there, I imagine us as once born from the ocean,
with pearl strewn hearts and wanton eyes,
as goddess meets goddess among seafoam and silk.
Jul 24, 2022
Jul 24, 2022 at 3:06 PM UTC
sappho greets her as she
would a reflection:
hand against hand, staring into
her eyes. silence dancing
around them as a long-lost love-
r.
enheduanna sighs at the contact
and the quiet shifts as
her fingers close:
as there is no need for language
when her
inanna will grant them
a holy diadem.
-----
eternity reeks
of nights out on the lawn
daisies growing with the weeds
pillowing beneath the two
dwindling women -
hands clasped tightly,
their eyes closed.
...lapis blooming
within the petals
of the undergrowth...
gods slumber amongst
worthy poets occluding,
heart-soothing each
other without words
or sonnets
or divination.
sappho dared to
look out from
heavy-lidded
lethargy,
for she was
yearning:
at dawn
...her honeyvoiced,
mythweaving
enheduanna:
a sweet-shelter
of temptation
and goddesses
who wage
tender war and
drink from pools
of sun...
at dawn
the ancient
divine
poet
gazes
again
and sappho
forgets she
too is nearly
as old
for her lover wears
an invisible golden-
crowned circlet
of springtime
and illuminated
lands.
but she can hardly think
anymore, when
the songsmith of
glory and prayer
is kissing her.
laying in the basin
of heaven and skies
she pours restless
eternity down
her throat.
----
lapis melts
to pink clovers
of fowlerite
no mortals notice
two bodies blending
between poems
rustling tunics
maidens casting
away their
fruitful
sobriety.
----
poet
dreams
a woman
of verse.
hardly expecting
shallow-breathed
kisses of burning
solstice and
unrequited
love.
Feb 16, 2022
Feb 16, 2022 at 12:18 AM UTC
I have always been weary
of putting names in my poems
in fear that I will never be able to take
my confessions back
but when is a good day to tell you
that I have loved you in every lifetime
In the past we were entangled in each other
One life we were shooting stars
another we laid lazily in fields of wildflowers
a love too strong to explain through words
so we didn’t speak
instead you embodied the beauty of spring
a way to remind us of those April days
when nothing existed outside of each other
We hid our love behind buttercups and daisies
maybe that’s why I love to bring you flowers
to feel the flicker of a spark we shared
in a lifetime so long ago
In another lifetime we read quietly together
over coffee in smoky French cafe’s
we underlined passages
that we would read each other in secret
our love withstanding a time
when it was criminal to look at one another
with the type of love we shared
I don’t know if I have ever loved you loudly
there are no muscle memories
of me shouting your name from rooftops
or unapologetically holding your hand
without fear of repercussions
—even now I don’t know how to form the words
“I love you”
without looking around to see who’s listening
even after all this time I love you in secret
I still can’t put your name in my poems
but i promise in one of our lifetimes
I’ll write your name in every poem
and tell you that I’m in love with you out loud
someday the words
won’t feel stuck in my throat
but I hope that’s in a lifetime sooner than later
Mar 7, 2021
Mar 7, 2021 at 10:02 AM UTC
You told me you'd never
flirted with a guy
I laughed
I told you my tricks
You smiled and I froze
because I suppose
I figured you'd realise
I've used them all on you
Mar 11, 2021
Mar 11, 2021 at 2:24 AM UTC
No, you cannot join in.
Unless of course you also want the backlash that comes with kissing girls in public?
Take it-
please
share the homophobia.
I have had enough to last me 18 years of shame
no, this is not a game and you do not have the right to take photographs of me while I kiss her.
Unless of course you are a photographer
here to celebrate our queer love in all of it’s natural beauty.
For my love does not exist for your enjoyment
we are not the characters in your fantasy novel
my love is magical and you cannot publish it.
My love rains all over your non existent parade because your homophobia does not exist at pride
wide-eyed boys
encircle us as if to say that our mouths brush only so that they
can paint the picture,
but you do not belong within my self portrait
you will not dip your ***** brush into my rainbow coloured paint set.
Clean your homophobia into the water
for our love is art
but you are not the artist
and my love is not yours to keep for later
for wanking your anxieties into pleasure whilst you turn my pleasure, into anxiety.
This, is plagiarism.
Copyright my love.
For I should not have to be aware of who is watching
or pointing or shouting or stealing, my love.
So put your hand down your pants and think of your homophobia.
No, you can’t come now
no, you cannot join in.
Jul 17, 2017
Jul 17, 2017 at 11:07 AM UTC
To the man on the street that called my ex girlfriend and I ****** I forgive you. We were nineteen and in love, I’m sorry that you were raised in a way that made you look at two girls holding hands and laughing as something that wasn’t to be shown in public. I’m sorry that my happiness made you feel insecure in that moment. My happiness was not on display to offend you. My love life was never an act of rebellion against you. I will forgive you for how you were raised but I will not apologize for showing love in a way you don’t deem appropriate for wandering eyes.
To the people I went to high school with, I’m sorry I never heard the rumours you spread about me until you were already out of my life. I’m sure you meant to break my heart when you called me **** in the hallways but your words never made their way back to me. Your aggression towards who I chose to love never stopped me from falling in love with girls I never imagined could be real. I refuse to hide away my love. I will not let your words shame me back into the closet I was scared to admit I was stuck in.
To the people who used to send me anonymous messages telling me to **** myself I hope you’re in a better place now. I often think about how my big secret made you so upset that you couldn’t stand to live in the same world as me. I’m not sorry that I’m still here now. I still feel sorry that you were so sad with yourself that you needed to make me feel as hopeless as you were.
To the people who voted no towards same *** marriage but watch girl on girl **** I’m sorry my love is only okay when it’s for your pleasure. I’m sorry that you have such a skewed view on life that you see women as objects and not as people. I would forgive you but I don’t think you’d fess to your wrongdoing to be forgiven. There is nothing to forgive if someone won’t admit that they are wrong.
I’m twenty three now and I’m still not sorry for writing love poems about beautiful girls. I have stopped apologizing for being something that I’m proud of. I no longer hide behind my assumed heterosexuality. I proudly proclaim my attraction to women because I spent too many years being ashamed of being in love. I will never again sweep hatred under the rug to keep peace. I have never needed your approval for my love to be valid and I never will.
Mar 7, 2021
Mar 7, 2021 at 10:08 AM UTC
you resemble spring
and all the flowers it brings
you are everything
Jul 20, 2022
Jul 20, 2022 at 1:59 AM UTC
She is my comfort in my storm,
The breath in my lungs
The soul in every poem that I write
When her hands are on my body
And her lips are on my neck
Her name is the prayer on my tongue
May 15, 2023
May 15, 2023 at 11:40 PM UTC
Les sentiments qui nagent dans ma tête
Après t’avoir regardé dans les yeux
(Quand je me sens capable de ce fait) -
Remplissent mon cœur de fébrilité
Trop exposant pour s’exprimer dans ma langue maternelle.
Mes choix de mots et les expressions enfantines
Reflètent mes sentiments -
Maladroits mais purs;
Nerveux mais calmes.
Sécurité et vulnérabilité entrelacées
comme nos mains
——
The feelings that swim in my head
After I meet your gaze
(When I feel capable of doing so) -
Fill my heart with restless excitement
Too exposing to express in my native tongue.
My choice of words and childlike expression
Mirror my emotions -
Awkward but pure;
Nervous but calm.
Security and vulnerability interlaced
Like our hands.
Oct 20, 2022
Oct 20, 2022 at 6:22 PM UTC
It drives me insane when people see me holding a girls hand and ask
“So who’s the guy? You know, who wears the pants?”
I want to scream and say WE ARE LESBIANS. Firstly, neither of us are ever wearing any pants. I want to scream and say WE ARE LESBIANS, and i’m angry because lesbian does not always have to mean woman but where did you get man from? I’m angry because maybe sometimes one of us does identify as a guy. A gay boi with an I. A soft boy. A proud hairy legged 5”4 boy. A drinking pints in the pub with my dad and us both liking that same woman’s tattoo boy. A cries every day boy. A feels cool when drinking beer boy. A boy that had to teach themself to like beer boy. A boy who sometimes does not feel like a boy. A boy. A boy. Oh boy. Boys. You see, this question is confusing for me because when I was fourteen, my boyfriend and I would joke that I was the one wearing the pants, even though at that point I was very much still wearing skirts and hiding behind butt-length hair and also watching the L Word in secret when I got home from school but that’s besides the point. This question is obviously as confusing for you as it is for me because in your mind you see two pairs of **** holding hands on the tube and think: Lesbians. Now, which one’s the man? And I think to myself, there are two ways to answer this: Number 1: So I know lesbian is supposed to mean woman on woman, two vaginas, ********** strap-ons, veganism, art degrees (and a lot of this is true but let’s not stereotype). So I know that to you, although we appear to be two women, two snap-back wearing, sports-bra bearing- I mean I thought about writing ***** tearing here but it just doesn’t seem appropriate- women, the funny thing is that erm, you see, gender and sexuality: as different as my dad to my mum’s other ex-husband. We are not a man and a woman. We are two people and what do pants have to do with it? We are two people and why does one of us always have to be a man? We are two people and the awkward part of the point i’m making is that sometimes I don’t feel like a woman but you wouldn’t know that so let me say: we are not a man and a woman. We did not ask for your confrontation, we are not your designated driver, your answer sheet to an exam you haven’t sat yet, your house party when your parents go away, your girlfriend that you think is obliged to **** your **** even though you will not go anywhere near her **** You are not our three year old son who asks too many inappropriate questions. To you, we are strangers and to answer your question, you seem to think that you’re wearing the pants here. So wear them. By the way, Number 2: **** off.
Jul 18, 2017
Jul 18, 2017 at 12:13 PM UTC
Find me tearing violets, my love,
in a manic daze; I am running out of softness and daylight,
like winter’s cruel hours
“but I will crown your hair with these torn violet tiaras
and your soft throat, twine with woven garlands”
and I will dig into my tongue for the remaining metaphors
beneath the bourbon, until odes drench my lips,
I will stitch my wounds shut and ready for your apricot kisses —
I ache to be kissed away,
to waste away before your sun-speckled eyes
like a tiny fae in your flower basket, I ache to settle
in your dainty hands,
in lithe fingers lost in my wind-blown hair.
My November, my gentlest love,
how I breathe you in like my grandmother’s letters —
how you consume me
in curious ways
and for the first time, I am not afraid of the softness
buried and warm inside my bone marrows.
Tell me, darling, will you stay?
Will we stay
this time
for more than a kiss?
Will we linger longer
than silhouettes in a dream?
Nov 11, 2022
Nov 11, 2022 at 11:28 PM UTC
I name all of my lovers after months now
and all roads lead to August and
the Roman cities we’ve burned —
how she walked on crumbling streets as I held the matches —
this poem is a page for burning at its tip:
a lone match, scalding — a firelit kiss
but the flames have always been a hypnotic sight
like a woman perched in your sunlit bed —
her hair, red as flames licking my neck,
red as love that bleeds on itself;
it leaves a stain on pretty things.
Now her skin has silk sheets burning away
like banners in a Roman cathedral,
her half-breath kisses, dying — now embers,
tainting my dress black where her lips had staked a claim.
Now her touch is wildfire crawling on my skin
and I am a wounded doe — waiting. waiting.
waiting.
The only world I know burns to the ground
before my very eyes
and we are no phoenixes, darling; all we do is burn.
Aug 25, 2022
Aug 25, 2022 at 6:26 AM UTC
Late night phone calls
Conversations and sapphic dreams
Days got so long
I couldn't keep her entertained
It’s haunting and painful
Loving what you can’t hold
Coldness crept beneath the warmth
I thought she gave
Ensnared me; constricting
I couldn’t breathe
Thought I was breathless because I loved her
But she killed me with her sweetness
Worry, confusion
Tainted memories
Agony and heartache
Looking back in vain
I’m blurry, misguided
Troubled and insecure
Uncertain and lonely
Trying to find a cure
To all of my despair
Thought she was something more
Wet and red
As my wrists bled
She was there
In every tear I shed
What a haunting way
To honor
The memory of a ghost
Priestess in my memories
Temptress in my dreams
Why was it so easy?
So easy to leave me?
To hurt me?
How was it so easy to let me go?
I’m still holding on
To all the things I can’t recall
You must have took them all
On our last call
The sound of your laughter
The sound of your voice
Choking on your tears
I still remember
Worry, confusion
Tainted memories
In the tea stained color
Of her eyes
Agony and heartache
Looking back in vain
I’m blurry, misguided
Troubled and insecure
Uncertain and lonely
Trying to find a cure
To all of my despair
Thought she was something more
But I was colorblind, I should’ve known
When our love was blue in a world of red
Nov 7, 2021
Nov 7, 2021 at 7:51 AM UTC
you see perfection
when you see all of who I am
I see repulsion
when I simply look down at my hands
I cant look in the mirror too long
without verging on fainting
but you stare and say I look like I belong
in some famous painting
that you would pay for someone to paint me
tears ***** my eyes
you say no amount of money would be worth my beauty
I start to break down and cry
you tell me "baby no, dry those tears"
but I can't help it
everyday you calm another fear
for once I believe I can be fixed
you see me through rose colored glasses
but what happens when they fall away?
after those pink sunglasses fall,
will you stay?
I don't know why you love me
Im such a mess
I don't see what you see
because baby,
I'm a burden at my best
Feb 24
Feb 24, 2026 at 8:59 PM UTC
sun through the window,
the beat of your heart
through your white wedding dress,
i trace reflections art
Dec 17, 2020
Dec 17, 2020 at 12:57 PM UTC
One life, it's a world with one just life.
And here you are in my life,
Telling me to be brave and live a good life.
But now it's too late and there's a knife
In his hand and he's full of pride
He's at your side
Better luck in another life,
He slides the silver into my wife.
I tried, I tried, I tried
But they all lied.
Jan 12, 2021
Jan 12, 2021 at 10:50 AM UTC
I’m drunk on peach wine
And you’re just a text away
I don’t know why you went back to them
It hurts my heart to see
That taking a break didn’t change anything
It breaks my heart to see
How you’re treated when you show any emotion
It breaks my heart to see
The ways in which I could do better
It hurt terribly when you told me that you had gone back
To where you were once so miserable
Every time you tell me a new wrong
It makes me see red
Because I know you deserve so much better
Than to be ridiculed and used as an ego boost
I am so full of these secrets
And it feels like they may leak out of me
I feel like I can never tell you any of this
A few nights ago I made a small confession
And just that felt like I had gone too far
It didn’t change anything
Except to make everything uncertain
I hate not knowing could have been
Or what could be
Because every time i turn around
I see a new memory that we made
And it reminds me of the gentle love you radiate
The love that I crave more of
I don’t know
There’s a hole in my heart that you would fill
But I can’t overstep
And risk losing what we have
I’m lonely as it is
I couldn’t take losing you
It would **** me
Both figuratively and literally
I would die if I didn’t have what I can get
And that feels manipulative
And I hate myself for it
I just
I just love you
I just love you a lot
I just love you a lot more than I should
Jun 13, 2022
Jun 13, 2022 at 2:36 AM UTC
let me lay a kiss upon your temple
count your freckles, soft skin so simple
Dec 1, 2020
Dec 1, 2020 at 1:16 PM UTC
i loved her so much
i've never loved something
or someone
so pure
so raw
so beautiful
in my whole life
she left me warm
before she left me
Nov 14, 2016
Nov 14, 2016 at 9:34 PM UTC
her boogie woogie,
boot and scoot.
her goo bosh vibe,
so small and cute.
silly little Anju stomp,
unaware of self.
bite taken from a chocolate,
stolen from a shelf.
when we are free from this life
we will run in fields
and see the sunset and the joy
life with you yields.
Aug 31, 2023
Aug 31, 2023 at 11:38 AM UTC
i never understood the phrase
home is where the heart is
until i was shaking on the floor of
my hospital room and it was nothing
but walls
and even when i found the energy to
decorate with cliché little things
like fairy lights, posters, my
skeletal “art”
i felt the room swallow me whole
until i was nothing but a grain of sand
my new roommate was a wrinkly zucchini-girl
and i tried not to speak to her
but we heard each other cry in the night
and we never said a word
but i could feel her eyes on me
a girl down the hall
heard me talking about my addiction and
she told me she would pray for me
later that day she pushed me
into a wall and pressed her
lips against mine
then told me i was tempting her,
i was a sin
just waiting to happen
so i sat in the dark outside her room every
night before i went to sleep
and sometimes she would
come out
and hold my hands
and tell me she loved me
Oct 22, 2020
Oct 22, 2020 at 12:52 AM UTC
You still eat away at my chest
like a mole finding its way out of my body.
God, it’s been ten years now since you last wrote me a letter
sealed with a pressed, dead daisy
and a ghostly kiss mark,
yet they’re still dying under my thumb.
These days slip by and I can no longer write you poems,
my dearest, sweet September —
but still, I hope that you have in your chest
all my papercuts from unbridled letters,
all my quiet midnights,
and all of my unwritten words;
they are yours for missing.
Must you leave a girl then, darling,
whose only fault was being one?
Sep 20, 2022
Sep 20, 2022 at 9:43 PM UTC